One with Lots of Pictures

Well, I have not had a chance to post in awhile, as I have been traveling and enjoying the holidays, but...I have not slacked up on the knitting!

Here are a few knitting updates...

Finished a few knitted Christmas goodies:

Monster Toy for Rosie
She named her Lucy

Hermione Hat for Jilli

Tonks socks for Stacy

Hat for Christen
(I love the way John is
so seriously looking at it.)

Fuzzy Christmas Hat for
Miss Elle

There were a few more, but I don't have pics yet.

I started a few other projects that would have been Christmas presents if I had finished them:

Hat for John, the enabler
(too small, will probably be for Jake)

Size 11 Socks for Dad
(Might not knit too many of these!)

Even worked on a pair of socks for myself!

Slant Socks in Haunted Vineyard yarn
from Cloudlover Fiber

 Then, Christmas rolled around I was bestowed with gorgeous yarn!!

SW Merino in the
Mae West colorway

Baby Alpaca Undyed -
Super Soft

I was asked to start a few projects...

Please Aunt Carolyn, I want
a hat that matches my coat,
Spider and all!

And had fun crafting with Mom! We decorated some lovely clipboards, and discovered that they do not make a good gift for guys. (Have you managed to dig out of that hole yet, John and Dad?)

Decorated Clipboard idea
I got from Pinterest

I hope your holidays were as wonderful and productive as mine! 

- Your (picture-taking) Knitting Girlfriend

Monogamy is not for me!

I am not a monogamous knitter. I usually have way too many projects on the needles (as you can usually see from the WIP list on the right, now though the Christmas knitting is hidden.) I have tried to have only one project at a time, but there are just too many beautiful yarns and fun-looking patterns for me to be faithful to a single project. Maybe it is my fickle Gemini nature (if you believe that sort of thing), or maybe I just don't have a very long attention span, but as soon as I have gotten a project well under way, I find myself glancing a my stash of yarns, or searching out new patterns on Ravelry, bored with the project on my needles. What then happens is I justify that since I am bored, I should cast on something else. I then happily begin working on my "new" knitting project until I tire of it. But, instead of going back to the original project and having only two or at most three projects on the needles, I tend to repeat the cycle of finding a new project.

Acknowledging the problem is the first step to solving it, right? Well, I acknowledged this problem awhile back and I am happy to report that I now only have 4..uh, 5....wait, maybe it is seven... unfinished projects. That is not that bad is it? And I don't really have to count the two (or three) unfinished quilting projects, do I? That's not knitting, after all. And all that Christmas knitting doesn't really count either, since it must be finished this month. And those KAL (knit-a-long) projects don't count either, because that is just being part of the larger knitting community. So really I only have, um, wait! That is all of them! I don't have any other projects right now.

Huh...

I wonder what I should cast on?

-Your (non-monogamous) Knitting Girlfriend

Dear Santa,

As I am busy with my Christmas knitting and gift buying, it occurred to me that it might be a good (though slightly selfish) idea to post a 'Christmas wish list' for the knitting items I am coveting, but do not currently own.

So if any of you out there want to buy me a Christmas present....

• Signature needles (any size circular, with a long cable) - or the whole collection! (Haha, as if!)
• Wollmeise yarn (I just bought my first skein....ooooo)
• Really, any wool blend yarn would make me happy, so check out all the gorgeous yarn on Etsy and pick me up a skein, or three. Doing that also supports local small businesses, which is nice.
• Those yarn blends make for some gorgeous socks, which I am in love with knitting right now. So any set of Wendy Johnson patterns, particularly her Socks in a Box, would be awesome.
• With all that yarn, I will need to be making and blocking final projects, so there is also, blocking wires and Sock Blockers (women's large).
• Blocking those new hand-knits requires wool wash, such as Soak.
• For the big spenders out there - how about a Schacht Spinning Wheel, as I would love to start spinning.
• Or, if you want to enable me in my spinning experiment, but can't fork over the hundreds of dollars for a spinning wheel, how about a gorgeous hard carved drop spindle or notions from Deerfield Creations?

Or drop by your local yarn shop (LYS) and pick up...pretty much anything in there. My LYS is Hank of Yarn. She might even have the "in" on what I am buying in her shop, so she can always help you out with ideas!

Merry Christmas!!
-Your (self-centered) Knitting Girlfriend

(You never know, that yarn you buy me this year might be your Christmas present in knit form next year....choose wisely!)

911 - No Knitting Time!

I am currently in Orlando, FL for a work-related conference. And between conference related activities and tourist related activities (it is Orlando, after all), I have gotten up early and fallen in bed exhausted late every day- and have not knit in 2 DAYS! There just hasn't been time!

Lately, for me, not having time to knit is crazy talk. I brought 3 projects with me - two socks I need to finish and a Christmas knitting project. I thought - lay around the pool, knit between meetings - all would be right in my world. Wrong. The meetings have been back to back with me taking diligent notes throughout, and the touristing has been non-stop walking, riding, and gawking at the awesomeness that is Disney and Universal. As a matter of fact, this has to be a short blog because I have a taxi waiting downstairs in front of the hotel. 

And this while all of my knitter friends are at the Arkansas Fiber Festival. Knitting and spinning without me! Ugh!

All I can say is ...

-Your (uber-busy) Knitting Girlfriend